


in the dark, i know your true name

by kostyabessmertny (orphan_account)



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Apodyopsis "the act of mentally undressing someone", Ariadne + the Minotaur themes, Charles + "I love you in all the dangerous ways" (Sarah Jaffe's Two Intangibles Can't Be Had), F/M, I would never approve of hurting my sweet Bunny but it cannot be helped now can it?, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 23:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1918677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kostyabessmertny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She rips the paper frock-pretences she pinned on him off, in the dark - wonders if it would reveal her brother whole. The paper tears, and she bleeds, and he sucks the blood of her fingers, like a dog licking a wound. She wonders if she can rid him of her pretences entirely. She wonders if she can rid him of her so she would see him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the dark, i know your true name

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was "apodyopsis" - which means "the act of mentally undressing someone". And being the nerd that I am, I had to take it somewhere that defeats the purpose of the prompt. Strange as it may seem, I happen to think that the whole Ariadne + the Minotaur parallel worked well with them. Then again, I've never been a trendsetter, so we'd see where this goes. 
> 
> Non-explicit twincest scene in the end.

camilla is a reflection of her brother; he is just her shadow (charles is camilla, but dimmed). mythology, at least some accounts of it, narrates that twins rob air off each other, in the womb. that only the stronger one survives. the secret is that charles blew breath into her, then lived off her exhales. the secret is that they lived off each other. 

he had crafted himself into a boy who won’t draw oxygen away from her, and it’s self-serving, even though she thanks him all the same - with sharper laughs and darker states and the promise that when they are bared down to animals, it would still be them against the world. he had crafted himself into someone who was less, so he can afford her. this is why charles is more quiet, more reserved, just as smart but with a gentler laugh. _less_. this is what everyone thinks of him.

except camilla.

+

when they were children, they read the story of the princess of crete and her boy-bull brother. they read of wild ariadne, reserved in the morning but with dirty feet, of her fascination with ichor and the violent formations of her brother’s play, of the paths she traverses in the pale light of the moon - her body, her brother’s labyrinth. 

they were children when she drew the conclusion that charles was her minotaur, that he was hers.  
she was a child when she drew the conclusion that had ariadne shorn her bull, she would see her brother whole - pretty and haunted by the weight of his horns. 

she was a child when she made the decision never to let anyone but her see her brother naked. 

(it has always been easy to love charles, love his propensity for withholding self-sacrifice, instead asserting his possession by giving you the right to possess him. it has always been easy to belong to him. it’s better if no one can know). 

+

the way he acts around the others is a stipulation of the contract they signed. another stipulation is that the whole contract is a secret. 

henry will never tell her, but she knows that charles throws him off. that he maddens him because the poetry he knows isn’t greek, or latin, but the lore of their southern gothic childhood. it is more than henry can ever hope to know. she will never tell henry, but she knows that he knows that the poetry that charles reads is of her sinews, of her soul. 

francis is different. he sees charles without his skin on when camilla isn’t looking. he sees camilla as shadowplay when charles isn’t around. she remembers _oresteia_ , and the feeling that francis knows it is charles’ low, lovely, harsh greek coming out of her mouth when she narrates how she’d stabbed her husband. she will never tell francis, but sometimes, she feels like stabbing him. 

bunny, for all the idiocy masking his uncanny ability, knows them most. she almost tells him to slit his throat and bleed out. 

+

she kisses him, one night, when the rain is harsh on their rooftop and the wind and his soldiers wage war against the curtains adorning their open windows. the kiss is light, and her fingers tremble as they brush the hair above his nape. the kiss is light, and already, her need to possess and be possessed is heavy in her stomach. 

charles slides his loose jumper over her shoulders, breathes into her mouth (like god breathing into adam to bring him to life). the disjunct is in his reverence, because how can he be the deity when he is the one who worships? 

as he undresses her in the dark, moonlit safety of their solitary nation, she undresses him too. removes herself from him, removes his obligation to bring her to life. she shears her minotaur to see him whole - pretty and haunted by the weight of the horns she’d placed on him. she kisses the space between his chest and his shoulder, and whispers his true name. 

she says, _i know you. i have seen you naked._


End file.
